Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Latest Business Openings (and Coming Soons) around Crown Heights

Stork

Puerto Viejo (Dean and Grand)

a new space for Interlink on Franklin

CH Cycles (537 Empire btw Brooklyn and Kingston)

Time was when a blogger could do individual posts about events and new businesses along Franklin, but that time has passed, and in lieu of writing several posts a day, here's an omnibus roundup of updates that have come ILFA's way over the last week or so.

- Stork had a lovely ribbon-cutting ceremony last Thursday, complete with cupcakes from BCakeNY over on Washington, food from Chavela's, and lots of local merchants popping in to wish them well.

- Reader Joshua passed along the photos of "Dominican bistro" Puerto Viejo, which is under construction and aiming to open soon over on Dean and Grand (in the space that housed a "Spanish-American" take-out place until the fire a year or so ago). According to him, the space looks great and the owners seem excited to bring their take on this now-classic NYC cuisine to the area.

- In a (regionally) similar vein, Kelso is planning to collaborate with Ginger Root Cafe to bring a buffet-style Caribbean-fusion brunch to the Avenue very soon.

- Brooklyn Inkspot has a great new website, and both they and sister shop Bella Greens are now on Twitter (@BrooklynInkSpot and @BellaGreens1, respectively).

- Thanks to reader John, who passed this one along: Interlink, who are leaving their current space to make way for the new Pulp & Bean across Eastern Parkway, have found another space just a little further south on Franklin, which keeps their translation and legal services in the neighborhood for those who need them.

- Finally, Crown Heights has a new bike shop, CH Cycles, now open at 537 Empire Boulevard. They, too, can be found on Twitter (@CH_Cycles). Anybody been in yet?

It's an ever-expanding scene in Crown Heights. NYRR's Brooklyn Half-Marathon, which sold 15,000 entries in one day today, now starts at Washington and Eastern and heads south to Empire before heading back up Flatbush. Meanwhile, the ol' Google Alert for "Crown Heights" turned up an pair of laudatory articles about the area from a pair of websites that likely don't end up in the same feed all that often, one from queer blog Autostraddle that proclaimed CH "Park Slope's queer, quirky half-brother" and another from the buttoned-down folks at Real Estate Weekly that called the area "up and coming" but then included an inexplicable quote from a broker who claimed the neighborhood "benefit(s) from being close to waterfront neighborhoods." Come again? Still, always interesting to see who's watching Crown Heights (and keep those reader updates coming!).